Sunday, 25 March 2012

I
was expecting the inevitable when we arrived at the corner of the car park and
became even more distant to one another; Lenny tripped and we disengaged the
shoulder to shoulder embrace as he did so. The corner of the car park was where
his fights ended. And as I thought about that particular violent point of fact,
it really was incredible that Lenny Fenton had never been barred again from The
Iron Badger for life. Life should mean life. You shouldn’t get a second chance.
No matter who was the new ruler. That sickened me, thinking that. It really did
sicken me. That this could have all been avoided. I was about to get battered
all because the current landlord did not have the necessary bottle to stand up
to him. Bobby Tongue did when he was landlord. He had the bottle. Bobby Tongue
barred Lenny. Didn’t think twice. You can’t have nutters challenging your
authority in your own home. But not Micky Moon. Always turned a blind eye to
Lenny. His mate Lenny. Micky Moon and them fucking blind eyes of his. He made sure
he missed every aggressive trick Lenny played. Even when the mad cunt kicked
off inside. But then again, I suppose that was rare these days. He normally
does his work out here. In the car park. I have seen what he was capable of. So
I had more than a good idea what I was in for. But strangely, as strange as
this sounds, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. I realised that I was no longer
scared. I mean that. I’d had enough beer for courage, but I also understood
something new about the mental state of knowing what was about to take place.
How when you’re actually confronted with the reality of getting your head
kicked in by a proven and well respected old fighter, there’s no room for
panic. Only the acceptance of what you are about to receive. Fate? You have no
control. So there was nothing going on inside my head. Fear, dread,
helplessness, self-loathing and depression was something that could wait until
much later. When I eventually awoke from my coma. If, thatwas, I did eventually awake from my coma.
What if right now I was breathing my last few breaths on this planet? What had
I got to show for myself, for everyone to remember me by? Fuck all, that’s
what. My funeral would probably end up as grave and depressing as the one
today. Or worse. What if no one bothered to turn up? Would there still be a
funeral or would I just get tipped into a hole and covered in soil? If life was
unfair, death now seemed worse. Time stood still momentarily when I thought
about all that. Me hating myself when I should be the one with all the
attitude. I then thought about fighting back. Having a go. I might as well as I
had nothing to lose. I might even successfully fight my way out of the evening.
End up walking Carol Lawns home instead. Stop over the night. Do the honourable
thing and tuck her up in bed. Maybe I should do just that. Fight back, fight
Lenny, stand up for myself. I can throw a punch to knock a man out and he was
getting old these days anyway. He was an old man. And he was drunk. A worse
state than normal. You could say that everything was definitely in my favour.
But then I remembered August Bank Holiday Monday. Who could forget August Bank
Holiday Monday? When hoards of travellers made their customary presence known
in town. Every Bank Holiday they joined us for company while paying visits to
pikey relatives and friends who lived on the Castle Island Estate. Notably the
Ford’s, the Gunn’s and the Abraham’s. How both pubs on either side of the road
bulged. Two pubs on opposite sides of the road joining hands. From what I can
remember, the mood throughout the afternoon remained in good spirits. Rowdy but
friendly. No hint of any trouble. But as the drinks flowed and the sun set, two
young Macready boys – from one of the visiting clans – had made a joint pact.
They had obviously heard enough about him beforehand and had grown tired by the
casual evil his eyes loved to convey. They decided that Lenny Fenton and his
reputation needed closure. They definitely, definitely, knew who he was and as
they were in town, they had personally decided it was time to retire him. They
were big lads. Brick shithouses. Lenny was within touching distance of being
paralytic. You could appreciate the misguided logic of their timing. No one
noticed any commotion around Lenny’s stool or when the three of them went
outside. After all, to a passing eye, it would have just looked like a dad and
two sons. We only knew that it had kicked off outside when Lenny returned. He
had blood all down his shirt and he was slurring about how someone needed to get
him a drink, urgently. I stuck my head outside and saw the two bloody lumps
that lay motionless in the car park like they’d been shot and then run over by
a tank. It took all the experience and diplomacy from many older heads – from
all sides and backgrounds – to prevent what would have been an unstoppable
riot; the mother of all bloodbaths. I went home soon after. I was convinced
that The Iron Badger would still burn that night. And I didn’t want to be
inside when it did. To be picked off when fleeing the pub. No, I went home. I
got home safely; I heard that both pubs closed soon afterwards anyway. The next
day everything was back to normal. Like nothing had happened and no one had got
hurt. The bloodstained car park was scrubbed clean and the sun shined. There
was to be no reprisals. The visitors had gone back. Normality as we knew it,
without all them lot, returned. But images of Bank Holiday Monday had returned
in me as I stood in the dark, in the car park. Bank Holiday Monday and the
Macready brothers laying face down on concrete were a spiteful hallucination
that had melted away whatever passion I might have had to fight back. What must
it have looked like passing by in a car, coming over the bridge and seeing
Lenny doing whatever he did to those Macready’s. There was no way I was
fighting back. Not now. And anyway, if I did put up a fight he would only take
it out on me even more violently. Lenny was the only person in my life that I
had ever seen stamp on someone’s head. Some one-night stopover bearded lorry
driver from Nantwich. Well that’s where he told us he was from earlier: about
the only words of remote interest I guess he said all night. He might have been
one big boring cunt, but it made me feel sick hearing the sound of his skull
engaging with the car park tarmac. I was there watching and I clearly remember
how Lenny laughed as he walked away that time. I reckon he definitely also
stamped on the heads of those two Macready brothers on August Bank Holiday
Monday. There was no doubt about that. They took one hell of an hiding. But
still, I know how to be a man. I can take a good hiding too. That’s more like
it. Like I give two fucks about Lenny anyway. Fuck all that bollocks. I ain’t
no weak cunt. There’s still a fire in me. There’s definitely still a fucking
fire in me. Come on then, I was going in my mind. Let’s fucking have it. Come
on then, me and you. Come on, ruin my only fucking suit, batter me, kill me, or
if you fail, paralyse me, set me up for a lifelong union with the wheelchair I
will never accept. The ultimate bitter cripple. Come on then, you mad fucking
wanker, you mad fucking cunt. You like your fucking fights. You horrible old
cunt. Do you hear me? Come on then. Let’s do this. Don’t just stand there you
geriatric piss-head prick. Do it. Fucking just do it. Let’s do it! “C’MON
THEN,” I screamed. “LETS FINISH THIS!” I then shutdown. The defence mechanism
in me, shut me down. I almost collapsed on the spot. What was the point anyway
in now trying to direct Lenny? He knew what he was doing in his own
idiosyncratic way. Anticipation was always better than the actual act itself.
That’s what I heard someone say about the joy of anticipation. Lenny must be
enjoying the anticipation of me waiting to get battered. I would have to be
patient then. But while I was waiting for the inevitable, I made sure I didn’t
look at him. In the same way I’d have my eyes clenched shut while facing a
firing squad. Why give your killers the enjoyment of seeing the eyes to your
soul in the absolute fear of that last moment? That’s where they get the buzz
from for their erections. That last helpless look of fear and horror in the
eyes of those soon to depart for good. So instead of looking round for wherever
he was about to launch himself from and clump me one, I stared across the road
at the barbers. I fixed my sights bang opposite, on his shop, Blackbeards. And
fuck me did I get a surprise I wasn’t expecting. I couldn’t believe what
appeared before my eyes. You see, that Italian still had my laminated picture
of Bobby Gillespie that I took with me yesterday to help give him some guidance
on what I wanted my haircut to look like. I accidentally left it in there when
I ended up having to exit in a rush and now I could see that it looked like he
had stuck it on show in his front window. From here, across the road, it
definitely looked like my Bobby Gillespie. The cheek of the man. He probably
thinks I intentionally left it in there for him. I could even now hear Enzo’s
Italian camp voice in my mind: “Look
people at this picture of modern pop star type of haircuts I can now do for
you!” What a joke the man was. I was definitely going round there tomorrow.
To have it out with him. Too fucking right. That poster of Bobby Gillespie was
my property and this was all an outrage. Then I chanced a look at Lenny. I
wanted to tell him about how outraged I was. About my plans for tomorrow. I was
certain that prior to all the mayhem that he had planned, he would still have
taken a sympathetic point of view regarding the certain liberties of that
Italian. But I never got the opportunity to voice my frustration. I never got
the chance because Lenny fell into me, almost knocking me over, and as we both
regained our sense of balance he pulled himself close, so his face was in my
face, his warm breathe a perfume of afternoon lager and whisky chasers. “That
fucking record in there should be banned,” he said, softly in my ear. “Now get
me home.”

Sunday, 18 March 2012

It was myguiding lightyou saidhaving done welldone alrightbut was ityour guiding light?when the factsprevailed tonightin the pub quizYou done alrightI could have saidbut you werepraying so insteadI had a fightby the fag machinewith a memberof the losing team

Sunday, 4 March 2012

I could never get the gesture out of my head. Not the features of a face, of some lost expression, because I don’t think there was one; one that was supposed – for me – to be remembered. I actually think that there was simply just the white hand in the foreground on a darker shade of white background. Or was it grey on a darker grey? It doesn’t really matter. All that matters is the image that remains, how all I could see, all that I can remember, is the movement of a hand, the slight wave. And it is the wave alone, on its own, that torments, that chokes me. For I do not know whether the wave was loving or mocking. I am tormented because something deep inside, at the pit of my stomach, won’t shield the answer. I know the answer is buried deep inside. Has been there all the time. But my stomach will not share this information with me. Out of selfishness or out of protection, out of loving or out of mocking? I just don’t know. All that I know is this. That the wave forever lingers, every day; haunting, prickling, bitching. I tell you what, that fucking wave’ll be the death of me. How I would love to get the chance, just one chance to get my hands around that cowardly hand, throttle the very life out of the little shit, rid myself of these feelings so deeply rooted in doom. Then the sun shines in and all shadow fades. I pour a fresh glass, this time the toast – drink to forget.